CARICOM’s Ministerial Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) is supporting a proposal for Haiti to have non-reciprocal access to regional markets for some goods for a three-year period.
The non-reciprocal access to the region’s markets is expected to go a long way to boost Haiti’s recovery in general and in particular its trade position.
In a statement, CARICOM said Joanne Massiah, Minister of State in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Antigua and Barbuda as well as the Chair of a two-day COTED meeting that ended here last Friday, lauded the magnanimous gesture of member states.
Haiti, which was represented at the meeting, has drawn up a list of the products for which it is seeking non-reciprocal access, while member states have a short period within which they will review and provide their responses to the CARICOM Secretariat.
Massiah, the statement said, expressed optimism that stakeholders in member states also would lend support to the proposal, which she noted would go a long way to boost Haiti’s recovery in general as well as its trade position.
Prior to the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January this year, it had been taking steps to put the necessary arrangements in place to begin participation in the Trade in Goods Regime of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Among the other highlights of the meeting, Massiah said, were discussions on the review of the rules of procedures for COTED.
The rules of procedure had an impact on how the council did business, she pointed out, making reference to the litigation the CARICOM faced recently.
The review is being done against the backdrop of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) decision in the case brought by TCL against the community, as well as the recent legal action being brought against the community by Caribbean Flour Mills.
The COTED Chair also referred to the deliberations on the community’s external trade agenda which included the status of the CARICOM-Canada negotiations for a Trade and Development Agreement. Two rounds of negotiations have been held and a third will be held later this year, the statement added.
Meanwhile, updates were also provided on the CARICOM trade ministers’ mission to the United States as well as on the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
The heavy agenda of the two-day meeting included discussions on the CSME, with specific reference to a study to assess the factors and circumstances that constrained the full participation of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (CSME) and Belize in the CSME.
The study was commissioned to provide recommendations on the way forward for the full integration of the OECS and Belize into the CSME.
Discussions at the meeting also focused on the Regional Integration Policy on Public Procurement in the Caribbean, and on the operationalisation of the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) which was launched earlier this year in Suriname.
Ministers also received an update on the 9th and 10th European Development Fund Caribbean Regional Indica-tive Programme (CRIP), the release added.
